World's 18 Strangest Airports

Here they are according to Popular Mechanics:

1: Kansai International Airport - Osaka, Japan
The airport is an artificial island 2.5 miles long and 1.6 miles wide—so large it's visible from space.

2: Gibraltar Airport - Gibraltar
Sometimes it's a road and sometimes it's a runway.

3: Madeira International Airport - Maderia, Portugal
Engineers extended the runway to 9000 feet by building a girder bridge atop about 200 pillars.

4: Don Mueang International Airport - Bangkok, Thailand
Looks like any other midsize airport but between the two runways is an 18-hole golf course.

5: Ice Runway - Antarctica
The real challenge is making sure that the weight of the aircraft and cargo doesn't break the ice.

6: Congonhas Airport - Sao Paulo, Brazil
"It becomes a challenge in terms of safety to just get the plane in there."

7: Courchevel International Airport - Courchevel, France
"You take off downhill and you land going uphill with an 18.5 percent grade.”

8: Princess Juliana International Airport - Simpson Bay, Saint Maarten
Not many airports are flanked by oceanfront property with tourists standing underneath.

9: Svalbard AirportSvalbard - Norway
A cluster of islands sitting in the Arctic Ocean. It’s the world's northernmost airport where tourists can book tickets.

10: Juancho Yrausquin Airport - Netherlands
The 1,300 foot runway is difficult even for Cessnas



11: Barra Airport - Barra, Scotland
When the tide comes in, the runway disappears.

12: Hong Kong International Airport Chek Lap Kok, Hong Kong
A 3.2 square mile island made by merging two smaller islands with reclaimed land.

13: Toncontin International Airport - Tegucigalpa, Honduras
The runway is 7000 feet long in a valley surrounded by mountains.

14: Qamdo Bangda AirportQamdo - Tibet
The world's highest airport, more than 14,000 feet above sea level.

15: Dammam King Fahd International Airport - Dammam, Saudi Arabia
The largest airport in the world with over 300 square miles of desert.

16: Denver International Airport - Denver, Colorado
Has a 9200-panel solar farm and produces 3 million kilowatt-hours of electricity per year.

17: Macau International Airport - Macau
A set of highways links the runway with the small island of Taipa.

18: Copalis State Airport - Grays Harbor County, Washington
The runway is located between the mouth of the Copalis River and a barrier of rocks. It’s submerged every time the tide rolls in.

My personal favorite was Meigs Field- the small island airport previously located near the city center of Chicago. It's gone but I'm willing to give Juancho Yrausquin a try.

Death in the Atlantic

'An Accident Like This Could Happen Again'

Spiegel has the summary.

One alarm after another lit up the cockpit monitors. One after another, the autopilot, the automatic engine control system, and the flight computers shut themselves off. "It was like the plane was having a stroke," …

The final minutes of flight AF 447 had begun. Four minutes after the airspeed indicator failed, the plane plunged into the ocean.

Investigators have finally pieced together sufficient evidence to unravel what happened during the last four minutes of Air France Flight 447, the ill fated flight from Rio to Paris. The key culprit: Pitot tube malfunction. All three airspeed indicators gave different readings and once that occurred, the flight computer decided to call it quits.

Flying through a thunderstorm is always a bad idea but there was apparently little latitude to divert based on fuel. Like many accidents, it involved a chain of events. They suspected this could possilby happen. And it did.

No Easy Days

Military aviation sifts with the finest of mesh screens for judgment and skill, leaving only the best qualified in the cockpit. The US Navy has an even finer mesh screen with fewer aircraft to command than the men and women in blue. Since the end of the Cold War, we have witnessed the “Incredible Shrinking Navy'' with fewer billets for pilot trainees with fierce competition for one of the most challenging jobs in the world. Plenty of lessons to be learned with lives and assets at stake in the air and on the ground. Courage is tested, missions completed and sometimes people even shoot back.

Naval Aviation is unique given the precision required during trapping an aircraft on a pitching deck. Arguably aviation's toughest maneuver is measured in inches and microseconds at the moment a jet lands crashes on deck. Add darkness for more excitement. A coworker dreaded night landings which never got any easier as he flew F-4’s off Yankee station. By his account, the preoccupation with landing accuracy at times overshadowed the importance attached to delivering ordnance on target (which is a little strange when you think about it). “No Easy Days” is a pretty good description and also a riveting movie and book. If you want more current (and excellent) sea stories, spend some time at this place.

As for WWII action, there’s a bit of it here:



Of course tearing off the empennage is plenty dramatic but some of the most visceral footage (for me) is half way into the clip. - Flying into a barrage of artillery during strafing missions. A gunfight with the Quick and the Dead.

I can shoot an ILS without it shooting back. Landing to minimums in IMC can lead to sweaty palms but that beats heck out of a steep approach into a hail of lead. So a big thanks to all our military aviation heroes, both past and present. Air superiority makes all the difference.

Hexicopter

While I know little about RC model aircraft, it was hard not to be impressed with the unique and unorthodox "Hexicopter". Not that I'd want one. It sounds like an angry swarm of bees. However, it has good payload, GPS and camera capabilities. A pretty good attempt from a hobbyist. Imagine the evolution of this idea with military backing. No, not another V-22 troop carrier but maybe a camera platform. Just bring earplugs.

H/T to Flyboy Tom

This Will Be My Final Landing

Today’s crash of a Piper Cherokee in Austin Texas made national news. The pilot was a man troubled by taxes, big government and corporations but unlike most of us, decided to show a little retribution. It leaves it its wake more fear mongering among the main stream media, casting another shadow on general aviation.

Bruce Landsberg, executive director of the AOPA Air Safety Foundation said. "The NTSB has found very few suicides involving GA aircraft - only 21 since 1983." That's an average of 1.1 suicide accidents per year, Landsberg noted. Three of the 21 involved student pilots; they had an average flight time of 61 hours. No ground injuries have resulted from any GA suicide accidents.

But there have been buildings. The Austin crash did relatively little damage not unlike the Cessna C172 that was smashed into a building eight years ago by Charles Bishop who also left behind a strange note.

Peter Garrison of Flying magazine captured the dark side of all this in a Feb 2005 article where he documented a number of stories involving Pilots Gone Sad. Invariably, it doesn’t involve hurtling planes at other people. Almost always it involves just the pilot.

The tower controller asked whether he would be able to get down and land, and the pilot replied, "This will be my final landing." He pushed the nose over, increased power, and dove into the runway.

No doubt, there will be the expected cry for more stringent regulations and increased security, casting aspersions on pilots as ticking time bombs. It all began when planes were associated with terrorism during 9-11. Since then, we’ve borne additional scrutiny. But for all of the hype, it’s important to remember it’s only one out of 600,000 good men and women.

A Primer on Primers

To gain some simulated instrument time I planned a hop with a CFII that I knew using his Cherokee 180. We departed the class D airspace to practice approaches at another towered field 20 miles to the South. The aircraft was quite unfamiliar. Instruments were laid out much differently. Trim was provided by an overhead crank and there was a push button starter. It was an older plane, reliable but not fuel injected, and included a primer and carburetor heat control. As has been said: “The devil’s in the details” so I try to follow checklists carefully. The run up and departure were uneventful as ATC steered us to the southwest. Soon, I received the anticipated vectors for ILS 9 while still at 3,000 feet. I captured the localizer just as Center cleared us for the approach with a rapid-fire set of instructions and a quick hand off to the tower. Down we go, descending quickly enough to intercept the glideslope before the final approach fix. I pitch down and retard the engine to get us into position. The glideslope needle begins to come alive on the CDI and I slow the decent only to find that I’ve reduced power a bit too much. To bring it back on track I ease the throttle forward. The engine starts to cough and sputter. A little more throttle and it seems to be dying with an increasing sink rate. While I’m grateful not to be in IMC, I’m not exactly happy to be in this plane in sunny weather either. Expectations are immediately downgraded from precision approach to a survivable one. I request permission to land, advising the tower that we’re having a little engine trouble. After switching on the boost pump, checking the fuel selector, Mixture, carb heat and magnetos I resigned myself to best glide with the engine below 1,000 rpm. It still sounded ominous but it was running. Sort of. Finally, I could see we’d make the threshold. I plopped it down and the engine provided sufficient power to taxi to one of the general parking areas.

After cutting the mixture and flipping off the master switch, I did what most people do with any troublesome engine. Pop open the hood (in this case the cowl) and peer inside hoping for the obvious. Mechanic's wrench, loose fittings, dead squirrel. Nothing. It looked fine. We tried another engine start but still had low RPM. Frankly, unless it ran really great, I’d just as soon leave it. There’s snow on the ground, it’s cold and an off airport landing in the middle of nowhere is just not inviting. Once more I get in the left seat but this time, I stopped at the line item that said "Primer-In and locked". Looking down, I noticed it was not all the way in. After locking it, I hit the starter and presto. Ran like a top. In aviation, there are many ways to screw up. Some big. Some small. The little goofs are just as lethal as the spectacularly idiotic ones. I had pushed on the primer to verify it was in. I should have pulled on it to make certain it was locked. Rookie mistake. Important enough that the FAA included it in this advisory circular.

If the primer pump handle is not locked in the closed position, raw fuel will continue to be drawn into the cylinders by the suction created in the affected cylinders during the intake cycle. The engine will run rough at low RPM, mimicking magneto problems.

The Really Cool Solution is FADEC – (full authority digital engine control) which I’ve greatly enjoyed flying in a much newer plane. It replaces magnetos, carburetor and mixture controls. Each engine cylinder is independently adjusted for optimum injection and timing. There is no primer. Later model aircraft all have fuel injection. Nevertheless, it wasn’t the planes fault. It was mine.

It could have been worse. This Air tractor , N3654T, collided with terrain and a fence during a forced landing in Minnesota. The pilot was spraying a field at an altitude of 5 to 10 feet AGL, when the engine ran rough, stopped, started, then stopped again. Post accident inspection of the airplane revealed the fuel primer control knob was not locked and it had backed out.

Never Again.

Lucky Man

The best thing that ever happened to me is pictured to my left 33 years ago. Cross country skiing for Valentine's Day with lunch at Whole Foods which is what she wanted and shopping afterwards. Some of the folks that eat there do love their tofu and wheat grass which is a bit much for me. The things you do for love.

She's worth it.

A Little Bit Nuts

My travels around the country took me to Meridian Mississippi , hopefully to drum up new business. My airport destination: Key Field. There's a small pax terminal next to the 186^th Air National Guard and NAS Meridian is 20 miles northeast.

Key Field was named after Fred and Al Key established an endurance record in their Curtiss Robin with 27 days aloft. A few displays in the small terminal area gave witness to their feat and it was scary stuff indeed at that time. Flying in shifts, the men maintained the plane by stepping outside on a catwalk that went around both sides of the engine. In those days, rocker arms had to be oiled but not usually while hanging on a scaffold with prop blast in your face at 3,000 feet. Fred actually fell overboard once and was saved by a strap.

Meanwhile, Fred had two mishaps while acting as crew. Once he was momentarily stunned when the heavy refueling hose slipped out of his hands and struck him in the face. Later, when he was on the catwalk greasing the engine rocker arms, Ole Miss hit a pocket of turbulent air, bucked and tossed him overboard.

An amazing story that proved air to air refueling would work using a cutoff valve similar in concept to those used to keep bombers and fighters aloft today. That was useful. This is not.

Chet and Matt Pipkin plan to set a new record for time aloft in an airplane, a record that currently sits at 64 days, 22 hours, 19 minutes and five seconds.

I really wish they wouldn't . It relegates general aviation to the same scrap heap as other strange world records including:

1. Heaviest weight lifted with a human beard: 130.2 lbs by a man in Lithuania


2. Fastest time to solve a Rubik Cube blindfolded: 5 minutes 42 seconds by Ralf Laue in Los Angeles, CA


3. Most figure eights with a kite: 2,911 figure eights in one hour set in 1988.


4. Longest midget toss: Yes, this is actually tossing a little person and it is an annual event. The record is 11 feet 5 inches.


5. Fastest Furniture: 87 mph. This sofa is actually street legal.

It won’t paint GA with a positive brush nor will it encourage people to become pilots. I’ve seen the current record holding airplane in the Las Vegas airport. 64 days back in 1959. It 's appropriate somehow in a city where multiple Elvis’s roam the streets. The Pipkins supposedly plan to raise money for charitable causes with the flight, which is admirable. They better raise a lot since the costs aren't trivial. I estimate 93,000 pounds of fuel at a cost of $73,000.

It’s not wrong to challenge yourself, to establish goals. Son #2 will train six months to compete in the Ironman this summer. Staying aloft in a light plane for more than two months without going anywhere is just another goofy stunt to break a record.

Escape Life's Gravity

That’s the tag line of the website: AirshowBuzz that EAA was good enough to highlight. If you like air show and air racing videos, historic movies, and photos then you should have a look. Top notch videos in high-definition with great production quality and content. Their latest ambitious project is a 26-episode animated series: Mike Da Mustang.

A global airshow search engine too! Of course if you're headed to Oshkosh, that's the only event you need to lock in anyway ;)

Tough Day at the Home 'drome

Authorities are still investigating what caused the twin-engine Piper Aerostar to crash into a residential neighborhood minutes after taking off from Aurora Municipal Airport. Air traffic controllers lost contact after he notified he had reached 1,300 feet (Wilko's note: this is MSL-actually only 600 feet off the ground) and they cleared him to climb to 4,000 feet. It was a foggy night with about half a mile of visibility, according to the NTSB.

A friend of mine, who works for the FAA, mentioned he was on the scene shortly after this particularly violent airplane crash by my home airport two weeks ago. Not all airplane crashes result in a debris field that size, leaving only small remnants of the plane. As I was biting into my scrambled eggs he said” There were body parts everywhere. I saw legs and an arm but we never did find one of the heads”. I put my fork down, the eggs losing much of their appeal. “Did he lose an engine” I asked. “You know. Asymmetric thrust on a twin at low altitude is hard for most people to handle.” He replied that it wasn’t engine failure. There was nothing official but it seems the pilot possessed a low amount of instrument time.

And that, my friend, underscores the difference between legal and proficient. You might complete the required minimum amount of approaches and holding patterns but it takes consistent practice to stay out of trouble. An autopilot can help, most Aerostars have them. It takes very little time for a plane to hit the deck at that altitude if you aren't glued to the instrument panel.

None of us knew the pilot and passenger. They were from Florida, travelling to Denver, but it’s somewhat personal when it happens at your airport.

Blast From the Past

Through electronic serendipity I was reunited (on-line) with a high school friend. We had both moved and lost touch in the way back. Thought I’d seen his name in a Time Magazine article, flying Special Forces missions in the first gulf war. Many years later I find he retired as a bird colonel and was large and in charge of Air Force Special Operations at Hurlburt(AFSOC). It takes a good deal of effort to rate O-6 with that sort of responsibility. He was a smart guy and driven to achieve but I never suspected that he’d be in that career path.

Great to hear from you . That was me back in the first war I started flying search and rescue helicopters, was an instructor at the school house in Albuquerque, took a short staff tour at the Pentagon, went through fixed-wing transition (not a fun thing to pull those G’s with frustrated fighter pilots for instructors) then went into special operations. I was the Operations Group Commander for all SOF aircraft in the AF (had 11 squadrons) so I got checked out in the AC-130 gunship, the Talon II, and flew some soviet stuff.

How cool is that? While I’m proud of the path I’d chosen, I’d love to hear his operational flying stories in the Pave Low. Some of his adventures are featured in Shadow Warriors and The Commandos. He later served as Operations Group Commander of AFSOC during the time of the famous Horse Soldiers with 94 aircraft and 1,400 Airmen under his auspices. There’s probably a good narrative behind “flew some Soviet Stuff”, like why was the U.S. flying Russian MI-8’s?

For both of us, it all sort of worked out with careers and families. However, Bob still gets to play with some cool toys. BZ Bob. Dinner’s on me when I make it to Florida.

Don't try this at home

...or anywhere else.
A game of chicken with car and plane ended badly.First the pilot's skills were not all the good. Second, The pilots judgement was not all that good. A stupid pilot trick that will result in suspension or revocation of a hard-earned pilots license.

Flying For Dummies

At last. Flying 101. For the rookie passenger. Kulula Airlines is based in South Africa and has been around since 2001 but recently introduced a new paint scheme. Now you know where the “Big Cheese” sits and an arrow points to the aircraft's registration, as the "Secret code." Shanair captured the details.









I can’t wait until they introduce the FAR / AIM for Dummies!

H/T to Dr. Tom

Common Sense

It was good to hear the White House dropped the plan to impose user fees on general aviation and stay with the current tax on tickets and fuel . This will help prevent many more airports from closing. The 5,300 general aviation airports in the U.S. connect with others in the system in a way that the large 22 airports simply cannot by themselves and provides more capacity so that cargo and passengers don’t further clog the class B system. New levies on the already beleaguered aviation industry would have also reduced available jobs. Taxes aren’t the answer to every problem. Thanks go out to the AOPA, EAA, GAMA and others for their persistence and hard work.

The Pride of France

The Concorde Trial and the July 2000 Crash

Money is not a major issue, since the victims' families accepted settlements long ago. The plane's airworthiness is not at stake: The jet was retired by both Air France and British Airways in 2003.

The trial starts tomorrow, and most likely continue until May. If convicted, Continental Airlines may get fined $500,000 and two of its employees will face up to three years of prison, as well as designers of the plane, who prosecutors say knew that the plane's fuel tanks could be susceptible to damage from foreign objects,

Indeed the plane was fragile. Seven blown out tires from 1979 through 1981 including two incidents causing severe engine damage. However, prosecutors are determined to pin the blame on the titanium strip that fell off the Continental DC-10 which was found 20 feet ahead and 90 feet to the right of where the tire blew out. Continental officials were frustrated by the lack of cooperation from the French, including an unwillingness to share data and the immediate resurfacing of the Concorde's takeoff runway after the crash. Ten years later, the trial seems less about criminal justice than assuaging national pride.

Kinda Cool

Winter flying would be great if it wasn’t cold. Unless you’re someone who flies in Southern California, it means engine pre heating and wing de-icing. No longer is it legal to use a broom to remove frost. Spray on glycol is the way to go and frankly that beats the pants off dipping your hand in a bucket of radiator fluid. I want my wife to enjoy flying in small planes so I leave her indoors while I remove the tie down chains, fuel up and preflight. I like having her along .

Props and lifting surfaces all work better with dense air. There’s more horsepower and more lift. The plane climbs steeper and cruises faster. Best of all, unless a front is coming through, the air is smooth and stable which makes happy passengers. Upon slipping the surly bonds, earth comes into view with the sum of its parts. Forests instead of just trees. Mostly though, everything looks….white. Rivers become huge pythons snaking across fields. Enormous wind turbines are reduced to tiny pinwheels dotting the landscape. Mrs. Wilko was kind enough to handle the camera.

Cool flying is cool.